Previously on my MacBook Air 2013 I was able to increment/decrement screen brightness, volume and the keyboard backlight in quarter steps when pressing ⌥+⇧ and a media key. This doesn't seem to work anymore with the Touch Bar on my 2019 MacBook Pro 16" running macOS Catalina.

3 Answers
3

Tap the arrow on the left of the system area to expand the full list of system buttons, then use the brightness increase and decrease buttons from there. (If you've removed them, you might need to go to View → Customize Touch Bar and add them back in.) Since those buttons have the exact same function as non-Touch Bar models, you can use the key combination to get the quarter-step changes.

I’m running the current developer beta of macOS Catalina on my 2015 MBP, and it literally just worked using the emulated Touch Bar that Xcode provides. You’re on the page that mimics the old-school function keys, right?
– BobAug 6 '19 at 17:26

The quarter step increments don't work with the Touch Bar anymore. The backlight small step increment seems to be completely gone, but it's possible to add the small step increment of the brightness and volume to the Touch Bar with BetterTouchTool: